TOUGH MISSION: Gen. Stanley McChrystal flew to DC yesterday to meet President Obama today, with the general's job on the line.AP

WASHINGTON — An angry President Obama called Gen. Stanley McChrystal back to DC and on the White House carpet today, after the man in charge of the Afghanistan war effort unleashed a shocking volley of insults at Obama’s top advisers in an interview.

Obama wouldn’t tip his hand yesterday as to whether he would sack McChrystal — saying that the general’s quotes in the explosive Rolling Stone article, trashing Vice President Joe Biden and Obama’s top aides, showed “poor judgment.”

Obama told reporters he wants to talk to McChrystal “directly before I make any final decisions.”

The four-star general flew from Afghanistan to Washington yesterday for today’s powwow in the Oval Office, where he faced the prospect of getting fired or dressed down by his commander-in-chief.

McChrystal will first meet with Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon at 9:30 a.m., then to Obama and the White House.

McChrystal was also to join a meeting of Obama’s security team, including some of the very people he mocked and belittled in the article.

Two military officials told The Associated Press that McChrystal would arrive prepared to hand in his resignation.

“The magnitude and greatness of the mistake here are profound,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. “All options are on the table.”

Gibbs refused to say in an emotional briefing whether McChrystal had the capability or maturity to keep his job.

The blowup comes at a bad time for the administration, as the military is set to begin a major push into Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, following a strategy that McChrystal devised.

In one extraordinary passage in the magazine story, a McChrystal staffer dumps on Obama after the president and the general had their first one-on-one meeting in 2009. Obama had already selected McChrystal to oversee the war in Afghanistan.

“It was a 10-minute photo op. Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. Here’s the guy who’s going to run his f- – -ing war, but he didn’t seem very engaged. The Boss was pretty disappointed,” the McChrystal adviser told the magazine.

At an earlier meeting with Obama, which included about a dozen senior military officials a week after the president took office, McChrystal thought the president “looked uncomfortable and intimidated,” according to sources familiar with the meeting.

Reflecting on Obama’s strategy review last fall, McChrystal said, “I found that time painful. I was selling an unsellable position.”

In another inflammatory shot at civilian authority, McChrystal and Co. crudely mocked Biden — who clashed with McChrystal over the troop surge last fall.

When an aide mentions Biden, McChrystal retorts: “Are you asking about Vice President Biden? Who’s that?”

An aide chimes in: “Biden? Did you say: ‘Bite me?’ ”

Last fall, McChrystal dismissed the counterterrorism strategy Biden advocated in Afghanistan as “shortsighted,” adding that it would lead to “Chaos-istan.”

Freelance reporter Michael Hastings, who wrote the story, got extraordinary access to McChrystal over a period of months.

One reason was that the erupting volcano in Iceland forced McChrystal and his team to travel from Paris to Berlin by bus for 10 days, extending the interview. They were drinking “the whole way,” Hastings told NBC.

In the article — which is available online before Rolling Stone hits newsstands later this week — he describes a posse of McChrystal’s top aides as a collection of “killers, spies, geniuses, patriots, political operators and outright maniacs” who disdain authority and party hard.

The group refers to themselves as “Team America,” after the raunchy 2004 movie.

In one scene, they vent about a bid to court an official in France, a key coalition partner in the Afghanistan war.

When the reporter asks who McChrystal is dining with, an aide responds: “Some French minister. It’s f- – -ing gay.”

McChrystal and his gang then decamp to a saloon for a rowdy bar scene where two officers dance an Irish jig and top aides perform a slurred song about Afghanistan.

The writer describes them as being “completely s- – -faced” at the bar.

But the portions posing the greatest threat to McChrystal’s survival are those ripping Obama and his advisers.

An aide ripped Gen. James Jones, Obama’s national security adviser, as a “clown” who was “stuck in 1985.”

McChrystal himself slammed the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry — who wrote a leaked cable challenging the counterinsurgency strategy McChrystal was promoting.

“I like Karl, I’ve known him for years, but they’d never said anything like that to us before,” he said, adding he felt “betrayed” by the leak.

“Here’s one that covers his flank for the history books. Now if we fail, they can say, ‘I told you so,’ ” McChrystal said.

McChrystal and his entourage were even more dismissive of special envoy to the region, Richard Holbrooke, a one-time aide to Bill Clinton who is admired for his intellect but known for sharp elbows.

The story describes a moment on McChrystal’s Paris trip where he gets a message from Holbrooke on his BlackBerry.

“Oh, not another e-mail from Holbrooke,” he says. “I don’t even want to open it.”

An aide then chimes in about the e-mail: “Make sure you don’t get any of that on your leg.”

Meanwhile, names of possible successors were already floating around the Pentagon and Capitol Hill yesterday.

“We all serve at the pleasure of the president,” said Gen. James Mattis, the Joint Forces Command chief, one of those mentioned.

A senior military official in Afghanistan said McChrystal hasn’t been told whether he’ll get canned or not.

McChrystal also doesn’t show respect for senior lawmakers who control the nation’s purse strings and vote on his confirmation, according to the Rolling Stone profile.

When politicians like Sens. John Kerry and John McCain come to Afghanistan to see Afghan President Hamid Karzai, they “turn up, have a meeting with Karzai, criticize him at the airport press conference, then get back for the Sunday talk shows. Frankly, it’s not very helpful,” said an aide.

In some passages, McChrystal seems to be fighting turf battles that he has already won — since Obama agreed to most of his request for 40,000 additional troops, settling on 30,000 as part of a “surge” strategy last year.

Just about the only person who comes out unscathed is Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Hillary had Stan’s back during the strategic review. She said, ‘If Stan wants it, give him what he needs,’ ” the article says.

On Monday night, McChrystal apologized from Afghanistan.

“I extend my sincerest apology for this profile. It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened,” he said. “Throughout my career, I have lived by the principles of personal honor and professional integrity. What is reflected in this article falls far short of that standard.”

He also called members of the administration whom he trashed in the article.